Throughout his long and varied career, Cruise has accompanied generations of moviegoers. He was on screen throughout the explosion of neo-liberal consumerism in films such as Rain Man (1988) and Jerry Maguire (1996). He entertained viewers through the age of global terror, through the paranoid espionage of his early Mission: Impossible films, or the surveillance capitalism of Minority Report (2002). <\/p>\n
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\n And as his off-screen life has often been manic<\/a>, so too have his films exploded onscreen. His body has contorted, stretched and leaped across impossible boundaries to keep the public entertained while society grows hotter and threatens to burn.<\/p>\n His latest film, Digger, directed by Alejandro Gonz\u00e1lez I\u00f1\u00e1rritu of The Revenant (2015) and Birdman (2014), is a culmination of all these concerns. That doesn\u2019t make it any good. But it does make Cruise\u2019s presence the most interesting thing about a film that is otherwise much too full of itself.<\/p>\n Cruise plays the eponymous Digger Rockwell, a brash, boorish oil tycoon with a mad southern accent operating somewhere between Dallas and Wyoming. Set in the near future, Rockwell runs his oil empire with a mixture of charm and callousness. He makes sure to remember all his employees\u2019 names and families while dismissing their grave concerns about the safety of his latest drilling operation in Greenland. <\/p>\n As things escalate and the safety of the world is at stake, a Dr Strangelove-meets-Dogville satire unfolds, in which idiotic US presidents and ineffectual do-gooders all fail to prevent the worst from happening. And the worst happens. A lot.<\/p>\n All the while, Cruise\u2019s face seems to slowly melt onscreen, buried beneath layers of prosthetics and makeup. With every frame, Digger\u2019s body seems to sag, his head pulsates and leaks, and his hairline appears to recede. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a hell of a way to treat the formerly ageless Cruise\u2019s body. And a stark contrast to the razor-sharp physique he showcased on the cover of GQ<\/a> magazine just weeks prior to promote the film, as if to reassure us that his real-world canvas remains untouched by the decaying spectacle on screen.<\/p>\n Some critics will likely call Cruise\u2019s performance a \u201cbrave\u201d attempt to take on a less glamorous role than the more generic action heroes he has been playing recently. But herein lies the disappointing paradox of Digger. It is a film trying to convey an urgent message, but undercuts itself at every turn by refusing to either let us laugh, or treat its own premise with sincerity.<\/p>\n Digger wants us to recognise the artificiality of everything onscreen so that we can appreciate it, to know that what we are watching is a construction and adopt a knowing gaze in response. But this simply destroys the film\u2019s ability to matter. As a climate satire, it\u2019s about as sharp as a sponge.<\/p>\n As a meditation on Cruise\u2019s stardom, it\u2019s equally deceptive. We watch Cruise climb into a rubber body suit to make himself look old, allowing us to forget that, at 64, there is something almost vampirically unnatural about his supposedly \u201cageless\u201d appearance off-screen.<\/p>\n As we learn more about the man Cruise is playing, the harsher edges that might invite comparisons with the real-life star become ways of differentiating him. Digger flies around in a private jet eating sushi as climate change threatens all around him, but there is no attempt to consider the irony of Cruise \u2013 a man known whimsically for sending gifts around the world in his private fleet<\/a> \u2013 performing such scenes. <\/p>\n Digger has a good relationship with his daughter, whom he spends much of the film worrying about. It\u2019s unlikely to real-life contrasts can be made there either<\/a>. Oh, and there\u2019s a twist I\u2019m not going to tell you about. Sadly, it makes everything even worse.<\/p>\n
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\n Read more:
\n Feats of the human body behind Tom Cruise\u2019s stunts in Mission: Impossible movies<\/a>
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\nAccidental ironies<\/h2>\n
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